Tuesday, September 14, 2010

The septet Trey Anastasio tours with between Phish gigs are about as chops-heavy as his regular band, as this Atlanta gig shows. Anastasio's guitar rips (natch), and the horn section adds nice R&B color. But the reggae-fied "Windora Bug" is stoned and drooling, and it's unclear why Anastasio is moonlighting in a role so similar to his main one. He hands off vocals to trumpeter Jennifer Hartswick for a cover of Led Zep's "Black Dog" — a small surprise on a collection that could use more.

Looking back on the early 1990s in Grateful Dead lore, it’s easy to understand why some folks view this as a less than heroic era for the band. Between the death of Brent Mydland in July of 1990, rumors of Phil quitting the band earlier that year and the transition into the Vince Welnick/Bruce Hornsby keyboard era not being met with entirely open arms, the bigger stories took precedent over the individual evenings.

Hidden Track's Ryan Dembinsky takes a look at my personal favorite era of the Grateful Dead and the slew of bust-outs they offered at the time. -Justin

I'm talking about the Suzy Greenberg. Specifically, the Suzy reprise jam, forever christened as "Darien Jam #1" when this show and this jam received the LivePhish treatment they'd clearly earned. This is one of those jams where Trey just smells blood. And man, did he kill it. After grooving along for the first part of the jam, he starts soloing in earnest about six minutes in. For the following three minutes, he just builds, and builds...and builds...and builds. Starting at 8:30, freight-train Trey comes charging in, laying down ferocious rock riffs with incredible pace and relentless energy. The tension peaks at 9:20, as Trey starts on a theme that would probably take 3 or 4 mere human guitarists working together to pull off. It's mind-blowing. As silly as it seems to say this about any one guitar line from a guitarist who's logged as many improvisational hours as Red, I consider this the greatest lick Trey has ever played. Feel free to chime in with polite disagreements, full-on flames, or thinly-veiled threats in the comments.